[TomMckenny]

This becomes more true the further a country moves away from democracy: in a vibrant popular democracy, people will honestly work for their nation's good and corruption is viewed as evil.

Further away from democracy, leaders are purely self serving, successful corruption is seen as a sign of intelligence and whistle-blowers, far from being heroes for pointing out maleficence, are threatened with execution.

And indeed, institutions eventually shift to working solely for the benefit of themselves and the people in charge. Mostly because any that don't are undermined until they do.